Depth powers Ryan in triangular wins

November 20, 2013

For most wrestling programs this season, teams are struggling to fill all 14 weight classes to avoid forfeiting valuable points.

That won't be a problem for Bishop Ryan as its depth carried the Lions to victories against Region II Harvey-Wells County and Region IV Beulah-Hazen on Tuesday in a triangular at the Bishop Ryan Activity Center.

The Lions opened the meet with a 51-30 victory against the Miners and closed the night by defeating the Hornets 54-17. Opponents awarded Ryan 66 total points - 30 from B-H and 36 from H-WC - via forfeits.

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Ryan Holmgren/MDNBishop Ryan freshman Jordan Will attempts to flip Beulah-Hazen’s Justice Roundy during the Harvey/Beulah triangular Tuesday at Bishop Ryan. Will won the match in an 8-3 decision.

"That's a huge thing," Ryan coach Chase Lee said. "Unfortunately, there's a lot of programs that are struggling numberswise, so if you have a team that has a kid at every weight class, that's a big advantage from that aspect. If you go into a match forfeiting four weight classes, that's 24 points you have to make up."

Junior Corbin Manley and freshman Jordan Will won both of their matches, with Manley pinning both opponents in his first meet with the Lions. Manley - a former resident of Martinsville, Va. - pinned B-H's William Guinard in 3 minutes, 22 seconds and H-WC's Casey Muscha in 1:56 in the 152-pound weight class.

"I just came out trying to make sure I wasn't going to get beat in front of my home crowd," Manley said. "I just wrestled as hard as I possibly could for two, three, four, five minutes, however long my matches were."

Will was the lone Ryan grappler who had to go three full rounds against either opponent. Will earned an 8-3 decision over B-H's Justice Roundy at 182. Roundy jumped out to a quick lead with a two-point takedown before Will won the next six points.

"Some of us football players, we only got one week (to prepare), but we wrestled hard," Will said. "There were some things we didn't do great technique wise, but we still wrestled hard and worked real hard."

Will pinned H-WC's Payton Pellett in 1:21.

Returning place-winner Aaron Sandy needed just 39 seconds to pin H-WC's Brad Schmitz in his first match at 126. The Lions recorded six pins in two matches, but were pinned seven times.

"You can tell it's early in the season," Lee said. "We're starting a week earlier than we're used to starting because of the way the schedule falls with Thanksgiving. Overall, we wrestled well. We wrestled tough. We didn't give up anything. We made everybody we wrestled work for whatever they got."

B-H defeated H-WC 32-30 in the other match.

Ryan wrestles in the Velva/Kenmare triangular at 5 p.m. Tuesday in Velva.

Mike Kraft covers high school athletics, the Minot State University men's club hockey team and the Minot Minotauros. Follow him on Twitter @MKraft23_MDN.